Pinching pennies

Newsflash: life is expensive. It seems that every day I’m stopping here or there and spending $20, $50, $100 on one thing or another. That’s why my little family is on a budget. It’s not terribly strict, but we do try to restrict our spending as much as possible to essentials only.

In efforts to apply as much money toward things like pesky student loans, we’ve made a number of adjustments that, frankly, we barely notice day-to-day, but mean we’re getting out of debt faster.

Use coupons. I rarely leave home without them. In fact, there’ve been a few times when I’ve forgotten my coupons and simply decided not to shop. Why would I spend full price on a pack of diapers when I could save $4?

Watch the flyers. Each week when the bundles arrive, I sort through the ads, removing ones I never use and keeping the essentials. Then I compare prices. I choose my grocery store based on the flyer specials, and anything that can be purchased at Walmart gets price matched, simple as that.

Avoid temptation. I don’t want to spend money on new clothes I don’t need at the moment, so I steer clear of such stores. The same goes with grocery shopping while hungry … just don’t do it, unless of course you’re me and you want to end up home with a baguette, cheese and chocolate chip cookies. We all have our vices.

Sleep on it. Always give purchases, big and small, your full consideration. It’s easy to fill a cart, but it’s another thing completely to foot the bill. The way I see it, if I don’t buy it today, and I forget about it, then I didn’t really need it in the first place. If I discover it was a true necessity, then I can always go back for it.

Cut costs. We eliminated our home phone and cancelled Netflix because neither service was getting much use in our house. Now, we are seriously considering cancelling our cable at the end of the month. I guess it goes back to my last point about seeing what you can live without. If we discover we miss it terribly, it’ll take one call to get it back, but if we prefer life without it, that’s $80+ extra left in the back each month.

How do you and your family keep costs low? Let’s share our tips and tricks.